


Clash

by optimise



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, BAMF Hermione Granger, Co-workers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Lawyers, Smut, Virgin Draco Malfoy, and, because he tries to be suave but he just can't, because she takes none of draco's shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9293273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/optimise/pseuds/optimise
Summary: He pisses her off like the ocean—in some deranged, poetic way of thinking. He’s too cold to dip your feet intoandtoo windy to sail smoothly onandjust—justway too high maintenance foronegirl to navigate through.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> to clarify, this is a Muggle-Modern AU that spans over malfoy/hermione's lives during their young adult years in University while they intern in a law firm which makes them take the grunt of everyone's work before _they_ can become lawyers (look at these hard-working, intellectual babies). also, a blanket apology that i write weird things like this. my muse toots its own horn.

It had started like this—

She meets him in University—while she's stripped down naked in just her knickers and is busy plunging away into the nearby lake off after some throwaway drunk dare because Hermione Granger _does. Not. Drink_. and it's funny and messy, and the next thing she knows, she's starkers and shivering in the night. The frigid water did enough to sober her right up.

He's standing at the edge of the dock—in some long beige khakis and light brown deck shoes (because _apparently_ , those were still in fashion) and a navy blue corduroy buttoned-up shirt. And then his bony hands are reaching to help her out of the murky water because some fucking troglodytes stole her fucking clothes and she's fucking mad, and he's helping her.

He's helping _her_.

He strips off his corduroy—leaving him in a long sleeve taut white thermal caressing over his muscles, and, _man_ , does slightly drunk Hermione want to lick his chest, like, _everywhere_ —to wrap around her shoulders.

And she's about to smile politely, practically kiss his boat shoes, and thank him for being a gentlemen when his eyes dip down— _briefly_ , but enough that she notices his lingering stare on her glistening and hardened nipples _way longer_ than necessary.

" _You_ ," she accuses and lifts a finger to chastise him; all of a sudden her bare breasts are bouncing, and she finds she doesn't really care anymore because his eyes are widening and his brows are hiding behind his overly-bleached blond hair his navy shirt hangs loosely between the calloused tips of his fingers. "You're leering. My eyes are up here, buddy."

"I — I," he stutters shyly. And she'll later reflect that it's the first and last time she's ever seen Draco Malfoy 'stutter' and do something 'shyly' because his real persona is a raging megalomanic and rich narcissist who _adores_ the sound of his own drawling voice, she finds out.

Hermione swipes his shirt and slips it on her shoulders—kind of sloppily, because her hands are shaking like hummingbird wings and her heart is pounding in her ears. She buttons it up until it's choking the top of her neck, and she admits that she probably looked like a Puritan preacher, but he's still stock-still and staring straight at her _eyes_ , this time.

She stomps away, barefoot and _still_ dripping with every step, after jabbing him in the squishy part underneath his collarbone—which hurt more than she'd like to admit because he's kind of sort of sinewy and all skin and bones.

Hermione attempts to hold onto to some level of dignity as she feels his hot gaze linger on her back until she sprints off the dock to convince Neville to drive her back to their shared flat.

_Yeah_ , sitting at home and eating Walkers biscuits is much easier than drinking.

—

The next time she sees him, it's in a nearby coffee shop; and he's hunched over a thicker-than-a-tree corporate law textbook, twirling a slick chrome pen, with his goddamn initials engraved into it, in his fingers as his venti skim milk, no foam, sugar-free, extra hot, extra high maintenance chai tea latte gets cold in front of him.

She's already ordered when she sees him, and he's too busy flicking a crumpled up piece of paper around the table to notice her, so Hermione ducks her head down and pretends to peruse through the different types of caramel lattes that this place offers—there's about seven, and she just doesn't understand _why_.

"A cinnamon apple turnover—" the barista calls and then scowls, "lukewarm, not hot, _lukewarm,_ for Drago."

His head pops up from the book. His chair skids. And she's holding onto her car keys so tight, she feels indents forming at the base of her palm. He scowls, lifts himself up and saunters to the counter.

Grabbing the crinkly brown paper bag, he mutters, "It's _Draco_ , you uncultured cu—"

And then he stops. Because he sees her. And she _knows_ he _sees_ her because she made the mistake of looking behind her and finding a wall of grinds from South America instead of people, and then he narrows his gaze, ever-so-carefully. Her skin itches underneath his eyes, and she shifts her stance.

She feels kind of uncomfortable in her grey zip jacket, so she toys with her zipper, and his eyes break away from her face and trail down for a _mere_ second, and she knows he's thinking about that night on the dock. Her ripped— _yes_ , pre-ripped, because she's a _fraud_ —light wash jeans now seem meagre compared to his quarter snap-button, knitted heather fleece and burgundy chino trousers.

When the barista calls her name for her simple dark roast—in a quick, _Jean, your order's up!_ because she doesn't want to deal with the asinine questions of ' _is that an 'o' before the 'i_ '?' or ' _Ne as in Knee?_ ' that comes with _Hermione_ —his expression morphs to one of placid indifference.

She gulps, grabs the coffee cup faster than she can slip on a cardboard sleeve, and scurries out the door. Her face is already burning up in flames, and by the time the jingle of establishment rings out over the door, she's—

"Jean," _Draco_ calls out before she can rush down the street. He seems to have grown a wave of confidence since the stripping incident. He lets out a feral smile. It's absolutely sinful. He takes out his bruin Tommy Hilfiger bifold wallet, slips out a crisp bill, folds it in half—the hot dog style—and discreetly tucks it into her jacket, right above her collarbone.

Because he's a dick, apparently. A _big_ one.

She's gaping at the _sheer_ audacity, and she briefly glances at the nearby rubbish bin and then back at him and—

Her cheek twitches. His lips twitch. Her mouth parches. He smirks. And her fist uncurls. Then curls.

He last cogent thought was— _thumb out of the fist, Hermione; don't break your fucking digit._

And then.

_And then_ —

And then the next thing she knows, he's cradling and protecting his wounded schnoz from another attack while leaning against the tarnished brick wall building, as his scarlet blood drip drops on the sidewalk, right over a now spoiled graffiti koi fish. There's a couple of gasps from the side, but she's too busy focusing on his little indignant huffs of air. Her scalding coffee is running a stream down her leg and down the sidewalk, and she can barely see from her glazed eyes how a tiny crowd formed around the two.

She shakes out her fist and wheezes slightly. Because, Cripes, did that _hurt_ like a bitch.

And the last thought she has before she kind of sort of jogs and sprints away is— _he really is pointy as hell._

—

She's pretending the sight of coagulated peanut sauce doesn't disgust the hell out of her when she sees him next. It's not really working, and she has to cover her gag as she empties a whole dollop of the sauce to simmer it out to an _actual_ liquid before dishing it near the satay chicken.

But she works in the Blue Mango Thai restaurant because she's a broke student. And she really, _really_ loves the free curries.

It reminds her of that time her parents took her to Phuket when she was 10, and she got a terrible case of the runs after one mango smoothie on the side of Patong beach. That was way back, during Christmas of 2003, the year before the tsunami, and both her and her mother cried when she saw a video of the entire hotel they stayed at getting wiped out; life really is a luck of the draw. They never really take vacations in Thailand—or _anywhere_ since the divorce—but Hermione adores the cuisine, regardless.

Her co-worker, Blaise Zabini, doesn't seem to be suffering the same ill-regarded fate as her; instead he's busy humming some Johnny Cash song and cutting up capsicums with a dull knife. Her boss, Kainoa, usually seems adamant on watching Hermione simmer the sauce with hawk eyes—as if she would rather replace it with her puke (she _would_ , but he doesn't need to be worried that she will actually do that; she's too broke to lose her job). But Kainoa is busy yelling into his flip phone outside—something about a crate of pineapples never making it in the morning. Needless to say, he's too busy being pissed to watch her.

The door in front of the restaurant jingles; even though the sign outside clearly still says _CLOSED_ in capital letters—because they don't open until 6PM and a quick glance to her watch says it's still 5:23PM. Blaise drops his knife, raises his eyebrows to her, and glides out the door to check.

She keeps her eyes—and vomit—down on the peanut sauce when she hears Blaise's boisterous laugh. At first, Hermione think she's mistaken—but then his deep laugh resonates again. And she can't help but wipe the remnants of food on her apron, huff a piece of hair jutting out of her messy bun, and walk out to the front as well.

And there he was. She scowls—it's instinct and she can't help it.

_Draco_. Standing there all rich and smug in his tight robin egg's blue polo with a little alligator on the front and in his dark ebony jeans, all snug and nice on his body and she's completely irritated at how good he looks. And he's _totally_ distracting her co-worker from the need to cut vegetables—students with hungry stomachs in about 30 minutes was practically impending doom.

She clears her throat. _Loudly_.

Both sets of eyes trail back to her standing by the door.

"Granger," Blaise chirps with that wide fox grin of his. She wants to slap it off; now was not the time. "This is my roommate, Draco."

And before Blaise can introduce him to her, she cuts him off and says harshly, "Yes, we're acquainted."

A series of emotions runs through Blaise's face—surprise, understanding, then worry. "Oh," he says softly. And then with more of a solemn tone, " _Oh_."

She glances at Draco with a furious look etched on her face and says, "No, Blaise. Not like _that_."

A faint patch of pink rises on Draco's cheeks as he rubs his neck, almost seeming embarrassed. _Almost_. "Er, she's the one."

"The one?" Blaise reiterates.

"Who punched me last week," he admits, slowly, carefully.

Blaise immediately erupts into a spew of laughter, gut-clenching and hair-raising laughter; the sound sits uncomfortably in Hermione's stomach as the only noise resonating through the empty restaurant was his laugh—the other two are too busy staying silent.

"That was _you_?" Blaise runs over and lifts Hermione in a heap of limbs to spin her around. He whispers into her ear, "You're my new hero." And then more loudly, "I can't believe this five feet of cute and feistiness punched you, Draco."

"I'm not cute," she grumbles. And she's mad. _Cute_ was not a compliment. Cute was something you called floppy-eared bunnies and little sharks you pet in touch pools. She's not cute. She's just—five feet of jaw-dropping and exemplary performance.

Blaise sets her down and spins around to face Draco. "You got punched by this cute munchkin."

"Ha ha, bloody ha," Draco drawls with a growing bout of irritation laced in his voice. "I just came to tell you that your flavour of the week won't stop knocking on our door. And I'm trying to get some shut-eye before my interview tomorrow. Tell her to stop bitching or you move the hell out."

Blaise nods with understanding, but his eyes twinkle mirthfully. "That interview at the law firm? I thought your father didn't want you working there?"

Hermione freezes in place. Corporate law textbook. Interview. Law firm. Draco. She feels the need to vomit quickly come up again. And it's _not_ the peanut sauce.

"You're, er, interviewing at Borgin and Burke's tomorrow?" she sort of kind of tries to ask—but it comes out more of an accusation.

Draco narrows his snake eyes at her. She cringes. Someone _still_ seems touchy about the fact that she knocked his nose pretty hard. "I am, yes."

She twists her apron in her hands. And she flutters her eyes shut. She practically feels her heart clench as she mutters, "Yeah, so am I."

"Oh, _fuck_ no," is all he says exasperatedly. 

Hermione smiles grimly.

Her thoughts _exactly_.


	2. two

"There is an eighty percent chance that I'm going to vomit, Ron," Hermione voices from the couch, laying the back of her wrist over her eyes as he kept his eyes trained on the television in front of him. He's currently vicariously living through his favourite football team, and there's absolutely nothing she can do to grab his attention. "I'm so nervous, I might throw up. Like, actually, I might right now."

"Hm?" he absentmindedly responds before standing up and pumping his fists in the air. Ron settles down once again before muttering, "Yeah, I'm proud of you."

"Are you even listening to me?"

" _Of course_."

"How many fingers am I holding up?" She raises three to wave around.

Ron barely even shoots a glance at her. "Yes, Hermione."

"I had a threesome with your brothers, Ron." That' something. Anything. "I murdered someone and left the body in your bathroom." Silence. "I accidentally soiled your signed Beckham jersey." Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Give me a second, Hermione, there just so—GOAL!" A look of unrestrained joy passes through his features, and a tiny little nervous laugh—seemingly stuck in Ron's throat for ages—resonates in his flat. "God, that was a great game, yeah? Brilliant, just brilliant."

Hermione just sighs in acceptance before fluttering her eyes shut and hoping to get a quick nap in before she has to run some chores. She mutters, "Where's Daphne?"

"I don't know," Ron says with a shrug. Ah, yes, Daphne Greengrass—his on-again off-again girlfriend and currently off-again, if Hermione deduces correctly from his careless attitude.

"What'd you do this time?" she prods, poking him in the stomach with her big toe. He's  _super_  ticklish, so he swats her fuzzy socks away before she can do any real damage.

"Why do you always think  _I_  did something?" She smiles widely at his indignant tone but remains silent—a  _huge_  feat for her, don't get her wrong. Ron grins, slow and lazy, baring his teeth. "I'm perfectly innocent, I'll have you know."

"You also have the commitment level of an easily distracted toddler—" he mumbles something under his breath, but she continues, "—so let me ask once again: what'd you do?"

Ron is silent for a couple moments. "She wants me to meet her parents."

"And?"

"You know I don't do parents."

"Well, yeah, I'm sure Daphne's hoping you don't  _do_  her parents, either."

Ron just sort of stares at her hotly and says in a blank voice, "Every time you try to make a sex joke, my brain fizzles out from not being able to compute it. It's like one of those ad blocker things for the internet, you know? Except it's with you and anything to do with sex. "

"You're terrible, Ronald." Hermione sighs exasperatedly and leans back. "I'm older than you, you know."

"You're like my mother.  _Of course_ I bloody know." Ron makes wild hand gestures that resemble more ape than anything—if that is the case, his impression is _spot on_. "I swear every time I leave the house without a coat on, I'm terrified to check my phone just in case you make sure to remind me to wear proper layers in about eighty different texts."

She scratches at her temple and hides a grin behind her wrist. "You know, I read somewhere that leaving the house without a coat—"

"Yes, yes,  _mother_ ," Ron swiftly cuts in. "Leaving the house without a coat can lead to permanent brain damage or some bull like that, right?"

Hermione shifts uncomfortably and harrumphs—like  _actually_  harrumphs. She crosses her arms over her chest. Then uncrosses them when she realises that she looks like a damn scolding mother. Stupid Ronald and his insight.

"Actually," she says as matter-of-fact as she can be, "it can be terrible because your body temperature lowers. Your head and feet are very vulnerable to shifting degrees. And you know what happens when your body temperature decreases?"

"Hopefully death so I can get out of the conversation," Ron mumbles, grabbing the nearest apple on the table to toss between his hands. He's always been this way—jumpy and excited and  _needing_  to do something, lest he chokes on his energy completely.

" _Illness_ ," Hermione accentuates. "Ill—ness."

He two-finger salutes her before skimming through the channels for another series to engage in.

"How's that thing you're doing?" Ron asks a couple minutes later—right after he buttered popcorn and licked his fingers clean. She's busy throwing disgusted looks at his eating habits to focus much on the thriller movie playing in the background.

"You mean my internship?"

"Yeah, that."

"Well, I was about to tell you about how I might throw up because of how nervous I am, but yes, I'm interviewing for it tomorrow."

"Hm," he responds as politely as can be. "Interesting."

"You have no idea what I'm interviewing for, do you?"

He opens his mouth, cracking his chapped, buttery lips, before immediately closing it and sighing in concession.

She pushes herself up by the elbows to explain. "He's an attorney. Criminal defence."

"You're helping  _criminals_ , Hermione?"

"They're not criminals if they're innocent," she tends to explain more curtly than expected. Hermione rolls out the pops in her wrists and cracks her fingers, and Ron lets out a tiny, choked whimper.

"Same thing," Ron manages to mumble.

"I don't thing it's the same thing if the person is  _actually_  free of crime." Another crack. "Anyway, the gig is going to be great if I get it, I swear. I feel like this what I want to do for the rest of my life, you know?"

Ron reaches down to ruffle her hair—making it resemble one those bushels that blow by in Western cowboy movies, to be quite frank—and he properly laughs at the sight. He smiles at her, lopsidedly, and his crow's feet come out to adorn the spot by his eyes. "You're going to do great, 'Mione."

She's patting down her hair. And she's a  _bit_  peeved. But—

 _But_ —

But she's happy. And she's nervous. And excited. And—

And it's not that hard to smile back.

—

The minute  _he_  walks into the law firm, the smile quickly slips off her face.

"Looking a little nervous there,  _Hermione Jean Granger_ ," Draco taunts from two chairs over as she twiddles with her resumé sitting placidly in her lap, over her tight burgundy skirt and crisp black blouse. Ever since he learned of her true identity, literally, like, yesterday, he's been saying her  _entire name_  like a mantra—as if he's in on some secret that she doesn't know about. Quite pathetic, really.

Hermione scoffs and slips her stockings out of her kitten heels and then slips it back in again. She closes her eyes and takes a breath. Then two more. "The only thing I'm nervous about is not being able to watch myself drag you through the dirt from my soon-to-be throne."

"Well aren't you just a chipper little competitor?" he chirps with a feigned joy. She side-eyes his smug little smirk and cracks her toes in her heels once more before rolling out her shoulders.

Here they were sitting in a tiny little room, shared by only a gurgling tank of goldfish and a water fountain in one corner, as they waited for their internship interview. Draco had entered the room a couple minutes ago, all decked up in his sleek navy suit with a dark brown tie to match and an annoying look on his face. Hermione's been pretending as though he didn't irritate her to every end. So far, it's not really working.

"Competitor implies that you actually have a chance at getting the job," Hermione says in her matter-of-fact voice. "I deem you a mere participant in this fun little game we're playing."

He barely even blinks at her jaunt—which is quite  _irritating_ , indeed. "I don't even get a ribbon for participation? I was hoping to hang it on my wall.  _Tsk_."

"Where? Near your shrine of me?"

He snorts and sinks back into his chair—but no denial, she notices.

Hermione nods sagely before adding, "And  _sure_ , maybe I'll order you a ribbon right after I finish perusing the stores for the manners I'm trying to nab for you."

" _Me_? Manners?" He sounds indignant, and Hermione snaps her neck to look at his baffled face. His nostrils are flaring. It's kind of funny. " _You_  punched me in the nose! Which hurt,  _very much_ , by the way!"

"You insinuated I was a stripper," she gritted through closed teeth.

"You punched me—" he pauses, huffs, and rolls his tongue around his mouth before reiterating, "— _in the nose._ "

"You deserved it." She puffs her chest slightly and turns away with a harrumph.

" _You_  were paddling naked in a lake."

"And then  _you_  helped me."

He waves it off carelessly with a hand. "A youthful indiscretion."

Hermione flares up and he looks kind of sort of scared at the sight— _right_  before he retreats into raging megalomanic once again. " _Youthful_? It was four weeks ago!"

"In case you haven't noticed—" Draco takes a long, drawn-out pause to ostentatiously glance at his nails in what seems like feigned indifference, and Hermione sees bloody red, "—I have matured into a graceful young man since then, thank you very much."

Hermione's too busy gaping to respond, and by the time she picks up her fucking jaw off the floor, the second door in the tiny room that they're stationed in swings wide open. A gruff looking man with a rotund belly and a curly mop of hair stands, his expression trickling between casual indifference and exasperated loathing.

"Pretty boy—" the man points at Draco, "—you're up."

Draco immediately clambers to his feet and smooths over his collar with a hand. What a cocky little man thing. Before he follows the gruff man through the door, he turns around and stares at Hermione. Then he smirks and points at himself, " _Pretty_  boy."

The returning glare he receives isn't very pretty at all, she thinks.

—

He looks like a mess by the time he comes out of the room only twenty minutes later. She thinks about his face on the dock, and she compares it to the present—his permanently etched frown and his wrinkled nose and his ruffled hair (as if he's been running his hands through his hair profusely)—and it's absolutely bloody scary.

Draco opens his mouth, closes it, and then swiftly makes a beeline to the exit of the room quicker than when he first walked in there. He  _barely_  even gives her a second glance—and it's still  _absolutely bloody scary_.

The same gruff man returns to the edge of the door a couple minutes later, searching his beige folder before he looks up, scowls, and calls, "Hermione Granger."

He pronounces her name so wrong, it physically hurts her not to visibly cringe, but Hermione's so focused on Malfoy's baffled expression that she can't really do anything but nod dumbly, follow him into the wide room, and recite numbers in French in her head to keep calm. The man shuffles her into a warm, candle-lit room, filled with only a mahogany desk—with the barest amount of supplies perched on it—and a single tawny and studded leather chair, probably taller than herself.

Hermione is on  _vingt-sept_  when the gruff man shuts the door loudly behind her.

And the leather chair—previously facing the closed shades on the window—spins around suddenly. Hermione jumps because  _what the actual fuck?_  and  _what is this, the bloody_ Godfather _? why did he dim the damn lights and sit rigidly in his chair like that? and also—where's his cat?_

The dark-haired man sitting in the chair lets out a fierce, tight smile, his arrogant eyes gleaming.

He looks like  _sin_.

And Hermione flickers to his name etched in a triangular prism—TOM RIDDLE in a fancy, cursive scrawl—and gulps down her spit, twice.

"Hello," he says in a husky tenor, and she know she's already wrecked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i changed the title because i am actual trash, sorry. hope you enjoyed, yay.


	3. three

She hasn't left her flat in roughly two days—two and a half if she was being completely honest with herself but that little soiree out to the neighbourhood recycling bin kind of sort of counts as leaving.

And Hermione's a mess.

Not literally—because, _oh_ , would _that_ be a predicament for her meticulously arranged closet and finely polished silverware—but metaphorically speaking, her head's a complete mess. Thoughts of _failure_ and _desolation_ whirl around like a riptide in her mind, pulling and pushing at the small insecurities until they engulf her, and she's ripped finally away and back out into calm sea, floating alone.

She doesn't want to blame the feeling on anyone in particular—considering she's felt a bit insecure since she's grown two breasts at a feeble age of twelve and realised that her hair is a bit frizzy (a bit, mind you), regardless of the curly-haired products employed—

 _But_ it's Riddle's fault. Full-heartedly.

She still remembers his sickeningly sweet voice as he practically accosted her in his office. The conversation was all, "So, what are your _actual_ talents?" as he leered at her and, "Would you be able to go through any and all means to prove your capability for working at Borgin and Burke's?" By then, Hermione had already shown him her qualifications—in alphabetical order and everything, on a scented eucalyptus sheet for calming factors—but he seemed to be hinting at something way deeper than if she can remember his coffee order or dig for evidence through dozens of files.

And then it was all, "You realise this is an actual place of business,"— _of course_ Hermione did, what was she a inapt toddler?—"not some minuscule job that you hooligans apply for just to see the inside of a courtroom."

"Will we be seeing the inside of a courtroom. . .?" Hermione asked politely, sitting up straighter in his uncomfortable wooden chair.

"If I like you enough by the time the case I'm working on starts, maybe," Tom Riddle replied with placid indifference. His hands shuffled her documents before looking up. His dark eyes gleamed. She held the breath stuck in her throat. "So, in other words—no."

She barely chokes— _barely_ —but she manages to respond to the next questions adequately. But Riddle just seemed peeved at every. Single. Thing. she said. And by the end of her answer to, "How will this opportunity help _you_?" all he did was grunt in reply. And it was absolutely bloody scary.

Riddle ended the meeting with a curt and gruff, "Myrtle might be in touch with you by next week." He paused. "Or even sooner."

Might.

And Hermione doesn't want it to be next week.

So, yeah, all she's been doing for the past few days is drowning in her misery through mint chocolate ice cream and phoning her Mum for some support. Hermione's watched about three sad, romantic Spanish movies and put on winged royal blue eyeliner just because and showered six times— _six_. She's pathetic, and she knows it. But, she also knows the job was a tried-to-hit-but-ended-up-missing-sorely and now she's stuck cooking Thai food and paying off student loans _without_ the position of her lifetime.

She wonder if Draco got the position—but by the look of his face at the end of the meeting, she doubts it as well.

She's about twenty minutes into another Spanish romance movie _Palm Trees in the Snow_ with a bottle of rose wine by her side and a bowl of popcorn when her phone lets out a muffled chime. Hermione mutes the telly and dives for her cell, hidden somewhere underneath her mountain of blankets—another one of her attempts to revert back to the easier days with a pillow fort. On her hands, knees still on the couch, she digs and digs until she comes out victorious.

Pressing the green button, she composes herself before saying in a choked voice, "Hello."

"Is this Hermione Granger?" a girl's voice said on the opposite end.

 _Yes_! _No_? Maybe so. "Yes, this is she."

"This is Myrtle." A long pause. "Mr. Riddle has me calling to inform you that you start Monday."

"Monday?" Hermione confirms, simultaneously pumping her fist in the air and kicking her legs out. She grimaces when she realises she needs to shave, like, a lot—and maybe brush her hair. Maybe she could also fit in a couple more showers. "Tomorrow, as in Monday. The Monday tomorrow. Tomorrow is a Monday."

"I have a calendar beside me, but thank you for informing me."

"Thank you so much for this opportunity, Myrtle. I won't disappoint," Hermione says, and there's a bit of ruffling on on the other side of the phone before Myrtle greets her farewell and clicks the phone shut.

Hermione lets out a long sigh of content before grabbing onto her nearby cat and squishing the shit out of Dumpling before he meows in that indignant tone of his.

—

Draco spends his time dawdling between his couch and bed. Time well spent, if you ask him. He's also eaten about three packs of four-cheese ravioli with pesto sauce and six bowls of cinnamon apple crunch cereal with extra sugar and honey drizzle (he was feeling a bit down, who can blame him)—

 _But_ , he's okay. He's living. And he got the opportunity to best his father and show just how much he actually wanted to pursue a career other than bootlegging in the family business his entire life.

Of course, he'd felt utterly useless coming out of Riddle's office—just from a mere question from Riddler, paired with a feral smile, "How's your father's business doing?"

Draco had swallowed down spit before saying, "Fine, I suppose."

 _Fine_ as in leeching off of every single person he dealt business with while racking up millions in his own bank. Yes, fine. Draco never even understood the need to con people; his father had inherited more than enough money from his family to support himself, his mother, Draco, and so on and so forth.

Riddle folded his arms before leaning in, locking Draco's eyes in a cage, "And your father in general? Last I heard, Bella and he are—"

"Are _fine_ ," Draco cut off politely with a tight smile. He twiddled with his necktie, pulling down on the suffocating fabric, just dying to get. Some. Fucking. Air. in his chest. If he had known this man worked with his father so closely, he probably would've never stepped into the building.

To be completely frank, he's terrified of Riddle even more. But Riddle let out another one of his charming grins, Draco supposed, and moved on to the next topic without even a blink out of place.

Draco replays this scene over and over again until he finds himself drowning in it—really, it's everywhere. In his bed. And on his couch. Sometimes in the shower. When he's petting Blaise's dog. While he waters Blaise's plant. And when he's lint-rolling Blaise's cashmere jumpers. It's a fucking _nightmare_. Draco supposes it has more to do with him not having talked properly to his father in about three years beside the whole ostentatious façade his mother puts on for family birthdays _and_ during those tantalisingly slow phone calls—of which it's more his father speaking gruffly and Draco responding with: _yes, yes, okay, yes, I promise, yes_ , and _yes_.

And then he had an epiphany—roughly about three and half hours ago at the whopping time of 3AM—when he was busy massaging his head with jojoba oil shampoo while having a shower. Tom Riddle. His father's business liaison for the past seven or so years. Tom Riddle. As in the guy who's _running_ the damn bootlegging business. Tom Riddle. The guy Draco has to—it's a _must_ at this point—to take down, just to be able to take down his father as well. It's smarmy, he knows. But Draco doesn't feel safe anymore knowing Riddle knows his father, like he has to look over his shoulder. And completing this task is the one way he will be able to finally acknowledge the disintegration of his past.

So, that's the only reason he accepted the job when Myrtle called him yesterday. Because Tom Riddle has something that he's hiding, and Draco is intent on finding it. It's an insider job, and if there's one thing Draco has learned from years of looking up to his father it's that—it's always easier to snuff out the weeds as a mole.

So, now, he checks his watch to be nearing 6:47 AM on the bright and shiny Monday morning, and he's already behind because he's absolute shite at shaving and he already nicked himself _once._ And at this rate, he's going for a second time because Blaise keeps singing _The Lion King_ theme song while making chocolate croissants (that are more mounds of dough than actual flaky croissants, to be honest).

Draco washes off the shaving cream with cold water before glancing at himself in the mirror. He looks like rubbish. _Handsome_ and _gorgeous_ and even _celestial_ rubbish some might say—don't get him wrong—but some sort of garbage regardless. And, for fuck's sake, Blaise's voice keeps cracking at 'circle' in 'circle of life' and Draco can barely keep the frown off his face. Blaise has been _way too_ happy recently. And Draco doesn't have a single clue as to why. This is not okay.

He rushes out of the bathroom—grabbing his brown leather satchel and carrying his own navy loafers to put them on in the car because _Cripes_ , is Blaise singing the entire soundtrack? Just as Draco makes it to the edge of the flat, tiptoeing past the bloody opera singer, and he's just _so close_ to the door and—

"Wait, Malfoy!" Blaise glides out of the small kitchenette with a checkered over mitt on his hand and flour on his nose. He pouts and whines, "I made croissants."

"No," is all Draco says before slipping past the door with no look back. He lets out a breath he doesn't know he was holding. Time to face his past and future, all blending into one huge horror story.

By the time Draco reaches Riddle's office, he's shovelling down a cinnamon apple empanada and sucking on a green apple and ginger juice extract _—_ with extra ice cubes to just have _something_ to chew on aggressively. He sits in his car, with the heat blasting in his face and the bass music rumbling through his seat over his spine, calming down his nerves by doing those bull breathing exercises the Blaise does whenever the television crashes. It seems to working. Slightly.

He crumples up the brown paper bag and tosses it into his mini rubbish bin near the passenger seat of his car before popping out of his star silver Mercedes with an indifferent facade etched onto his face.

He's calm, cool, collected.

Calm. Cool. Collected.

Calm. Cool. Colle—

He spots her hair before anything else, really. She's standing by her own junk of a trunk she must call a car, shuffling through her purse in the parking lot like it's her damn job.

" _Granger_?" he asks—more out of a piked increase of _what the fuck_ curiosity than of his usual incorporated passive aggressive demeanour. Because she's not supposed to be here; she'll most definitely be hurt from the fallout. She snaps her head around so fast, he's genuinely surprised she didn't break her neck in the process. And she's _just_ as surprised to see him, if not more. Her mouth widens, but he speaks in a growl before she can express her thoughts, "What are you doing here?"

—

"What do you mean 'what am I doing here?'" Hermione shoots back, immediately, shoving her half-eaten bag of cranberry granola in a ziplock bag somewhere into the deep caverns of her purse. She hopes she can find it later—somewhere between those unsalted walnuts she lost a while ago and tangy tubes of ruby red lipstick.

He looks as though he's about to usurp the entire office if necessary, with his back straight and face set into a thin line. "I got the position."

"Yeah, well, so did I, bub," Hermione taunts from a good distance away. No need to bruise her knuckles again—a good icing and trouble bending her fingers was enough of a lesson to never take _that_ route of revenge again. Regardless, she clenches her fist for good measure.

" _Bub_?" Malfoy confirms, stepping eerily closer and adjusting the strap of his satchel—man-purse, in her opinion. She shuffles backward, hitting her car door. He sighs exasperatedly, pinching his pointy nose and just _staring_ at her with eyes wide. He looks like a doe caught in headlights. Finally, he scrapes his fingers through his scalp and speaks curtly, "You need to leave."

She squints at him. He looks worried. His foot keeps tapping and his hands are shaking and _Cripes_ , is he about to cry?

"Not likely. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I'll keep it in mind when I see you leaving from my new shiny office."

She hears his scoff, but she's already trying to make her way to the glass doors without another glance back.

Hermione begins to saunter away from the lot of cars, quickening her steps to briskly walk (more like sprint) away from Malfoy as fast as possible. She hears his steps behind her, so she picks up her pace. And Hermione barely makes it into the front glass doors of the building of offices before he—

 _He_ grabs her forearm and drags her into a nearby room, shoving her in—not politely _at all_ —and shutting the door with a gentle click. Hermione digs through her purse for a whistle or something. And Malfoy looms over the only entrance and exit in the darkly lit room. The air smelt mildly like a mix between potpourri and disinfectant. It's disgusting; even her eyes begin to tear at the pungent smell.

Hermione takes her eyes off his frowning face to glance around—brooms, towels, and a hefty box of garbage lay idle in the shelves. He shoved her in a broom closet. _A broom closet._

His fingers reach out to grope the wall to turn on the light. It's a single floating bulb that flickers above their heads, daunting them with a fluorescent sheen leaving contours down their facial features.

"Look, I didn't want to have to take this somewhere private, but—" he whispers. A deep exhale resonates from him, and he sets down his satchel, "—you and I need to—"

 _Have a little chat?_ Hermione immediately interjects in her mind—and _fuck_ , she feels like she's in a horror movie where the antagonist is about to slit someone's throat after saying those— _those_ exact words. Hermione read somewhere that people have a tendency of wanting to get rid of opponents on the playing field—just to make it easier for themselves. And low and behold, she's a worthy opponent, it seems. She's kind of sort of flattered, also scared, but flattered nonetheless.

But at this point, she needs to bring out the sympathy—or beg, but that's a last resort, for sure.

"Please _don't_ ," she cuts him off, stepping back to clutch what seems a thick wooden broom. Just in case. "I have three cats who hate me, even though I snuggle with them a lot. I'm really rubbish at parallel parking, so I avoid it every single time. And I'm addicted to comic books, only _Spiderman_ ones though. And I pretend like I don't eat cake, but really I do. A lot. It's an addiction that can't be quenched no matter—"

"What are you even doing?" he accuses, dipping his eyebrows together.

"I once read somewhere that if you tell someone facts about yourself before they try to kill you, they're less likely to do so. Something to do with being familiarised with them enough to spare them."

"I'm not going to kill you." Another sigh from him. There's been enough of those. "Who do you think I am?"

But now she's _pissed_. Hermione steps forward to jab him in the squishy part underneath his collarbone. "Then why do you shove me into some enclosed space!"

"I'm trying to help you, _okay_?"

She leers closer and his back slams into the door.

" _Oh_ —I see what this is about." Hermione crosses her arms smugly. "This is some sort of inferiority complex."

"What?" Malfoy asks, indignantly. "I think—"

"I don't care what _you_ think." Hermione grapples between exploding at him or listening to that one therapist that told her to not take unneeded vengeance on people she despises. A second goes by. Then another. She chooses the former. "You're mad you didn't get the position."

"I _just_ told you that I got—" he begins starchily but gets cut off in her growing accusation. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

"And now you're using scaring tactics in order to make me feel bad about myself. You're trying to intimidate me with your overly lanky body and frail bones."

He places a hand over his chest and makes a choking noise in voice of his misery.

"You, Draco, are just a petulant child with the need for bringing others to your level. A perennially decreasing level of suck."

"You just claimed that my level was—suck." He cocks his head, glancing at her through wary eyes. "As in I am at the level of _suck_."

"Kind of, yeah."

"I just—" he breaks off his thought and shakes his head.

She gazes at him through heavy lids.

"You thought I was going to kill you," Malfoy states blankly. He blinks.

"You know, I read somewhere that nearly eighteen percent of homicide cases are from strangers or acquaintances."

"I can barely open a jar of pickled onions. How would I ever even manage to kill _you_?"

A small laugh escapes her throat at his declaration of not being able to complete such a task. And before both of them know it, they're leaning over in a broom cupboard and stifling their laughs. Maybe the acrid disinfectant got to their brains by then, but Hermione's too busy wiping tears—once again, _maybe_ from the toxic fumes—from her eyes and leaning on an empty wall to care much. Malfoy gives a lopsided smile, adorned with crow's feet and a single dimple on his right cheek.

"I bet if I get within ten steps of you, you'll deck me again," he comments amusedly.

"That's true." She pretends to rub her chin and gaze at him contemplatively.

He opens his mouth to say something more, but they're quickly blinded by a widening light seeping through their vision. Hermione squeezes her eyes shut before she's shot with a curtained light behind Malfoy's tall body. He turns and lets out a tiny squeak; it's kind of funny, and she lets out a soft laugh vibrating through her body again.

"Are you guys done canoodling? Or shall I come back later?" the voice drawls with a placid voice. She halts her laughter.

"We weren't—" Malfoy rushes out, "—we weren't doing _that_."

"Oh?" Riddle says. Hermione peeks out from behind Malfoy's back, a guilty look on her face. She twiddles her thumbs and watches Malfoy's cheeks gain _some_ colour finally. The pale git needs it. "Don't make me regret hiring you because it turns out you two are a bunch of randy insufferable fools."

He shoots a dark glare and spins on his heels. His clicking shoes resonate down the hall, and a mere wave with two fingers beckons both Malfoy and Hermione to follow, with their tails between their legs.

In that one mortifying, embarrassing moment, Hermione finally decides to put her game face on and place forward her best effort—even if Malfoy tries to stop her. She'll go down kicking and scratching, if needed.

 _Nothing_ will get in her way. Nothing.

But in the interstice between them, Malfoy's furious whisper sends tingles toward Hermione's spine—

"I _still_ need to talk to you."

Except maybe that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is lowkey inspired by a Grey's Anatomy scene I think I watched five-ish years ago!
> 
> also, this whole story is kind of sort of me writing for fun as i juggle everything, so i hope no one takes this (or me) too seriously lmao. but, yeah, hope you enjoyed??? sorry this took a while??? yikes??


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